 Officers started to disband their troops, and soldiers tried to form groups of people from the same regions to return home.The sheer number of soldiers retreating put a strain on resources along their path home.As a consequence, on , general Dmitriy Shcherbachov, the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armies on the Romanian Front, by order 156370 agreed to form 16 cohorts exclusively of Moldavian soldiers, and commanded by Moldavian officers.